


So take off the mask so I can see your face

by Kavi Leighanna (kleighanna)



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M, PWP, Smut, really just smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-07 01:55:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1880718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kleighanna/pseuds/Kavi%20Leighanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's seduction at its finest and in its finery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So take off the mask so I can see your face

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Michael Jackson's "Behind the Mask"

It’s seduction at its finest and in its finery. Masks and gowns and tuxedoes, money and donors and government officials. It’s the time of year when the FBI and its sister organizations lobby for money. National security is, after all, so very important. Hotch is not off the hook for this one. If Strauss has to be there, then by God, so does he. If he’s honest, he hates it. He’s had a thing against masks since he was a kid and he hates being on parade. He hates the feeling of being a prized pony at a show.

“A veritable who’s who of government. No wonder Strauss didn’t pick Rossi.”

He spins quickly and can’t help the smile that graces his face. He’s never been so happy to see someone in his life. “Emily.”

“Hotch,” she greets, bobbing a sarcastic curtsy. Or what passes as one anyway, considering her gown isn’t really made for that. It is beautiful though, a rich green that makes her skin all but glow. Not that he’s noticing of course, the same way he is not noticing how the matching silk mask she wears makes her eyes look so, so dark. Because those aren’t things one notices about one’s subordinates. Even the pretty ones. And Hotch has always known Emily is that.

“Have you done your rounds?”

It’s a strange question but he nods.

“Oh thank God. I am so sick of explaining to this senator that the fact that he wears a too-tight suit means he’s overcompensating.”

“Emily.” He’s not that scandalized, not really. She has proven time and time again she is a woman who can hold her own in this kind of society.

She grins unrepentantly, even as she tugs his hands towards the dance floor. He goes reluctantly, not because he’s a terrible dancer but because he knows his limits. He knows what standing that close for that long will do to him. He’s not sure he wants to risk it. Emily, however, is insistent, so he’s really not getting a choice in the matter. He gives into her way too often when they’re not on the clock.

Because now they do that, spend time together outside of the office. It has started as a kind of socialization for Jack, making sure Hotch wasn’t keeping the kid isolated in his own room (and okay, he’s not stupid, he knows it wasn’t all about Jack’s socialization). Now though they have a breakfast place, and a coffee place, and people know them. It’s Emily, he knows, the easy way she has of developing a rapport with people. Still, he looks forward to those quiet mornings of just sitting together on a bench in front of their building, or the Saturday mornings they have two-hour brunches. It really isn’t a wonder that he’s attracted to her. That he’s already half way in love with her.

He lets her shift them, lets her set the distance between them while they dance and for a while, he falls into the rhythm. But Emily has a historic problem being quiet for long periods of time and she, of course, does not disappoint.

“Where did you learn to dance?”

He gives her a wry look. “My mother was a debutante. Sean and I both dance.”

Her eyes light up as they tend to do when he shares something so very personal. She knows more about him than she should, really, more than Haley.

“Did she make you take lessons?”

He winces but nods and her face turns positively gleeful. “I can see it, you know. Tiny little Hotch with his adorable dimples, charming the little six-year olds. Probably a few mothers too. You just can’t help yourself.”

She does that a lot, makes up these stories, tries to tell him that he should be out on the market. He’s mourned Haley enough, she’ll tell him gently. It’s time to find love again. The problem is he’s already found it. The problem is that she’s oblivious. Well, and his subordinate. And too good for him. The list is actually quite extensive when he really looks at it.

“I bet you raised more money than I did,” she says and puts on a pout. God he hates and loves that pout in equal measure and he swallows around the lump forming in his throat. He’s going to do something stupid soon, he feels it. It’s happening more and more now, this need to just… do something. He wants to tell her and not to tell her. He’s pretty sure he’s going to lose that battle very soon and ruin everything. He bites his tongue, hard.

“Did you break out the dimples? Because that is entirely unfair. You know those Hotchner dimples are everyone’s weakness. How many ice cream cones have I bought Jack because of those dimples?”

A lot, is the answer to that question, but it’s not the one that flies to the tip of his tongue. Instead, he wants to ask her why she never buys him ice cream. He bites his tongue harder.

And then her hand comes up and cups his cheek, a move she uses often when Jack’s avoiding her, but not one she’s ever used with him. He’s a goner, and he knows it, especially with the worry in her eyes, the way it’s written all over her face. Her mouth is even tilting down in a tiny frown and this woman will be the death of him, he swears it.

“Stop,” he croaks out and her face falls. She steps back immediately and he hates the look that washes over her face.

“I’m just teasing,” she says softly.

And that’s the problem. Well, it is and it isn’t because she’s not teasing on purpose. Not in the way he’s thinking, anyway. So he swallows and tries to focus, tries to bring himself back to the moment and the dance, not the woman he’d been sharing the dance with. He waves it away and reaches for her again, but she steps back out of reach. That hurts.

“I’m sorry,” he says on reflex, finds that it’s a pretty normal occurrence for them now.  He opens his mouth to tell her more, to explain that it isn’t really her fault but can’t seem to find the words.

She shakes her head, glances away. “I can go, if you want.”

“What?”

She shrugs, or tries to. It doesn’t come off nearly as nonchalant as she’d wanted, he’s sure. “Something’s wrong,” she says. “You’re short with me.”

He chokes, has to clear his throat. “No. Emily, no.”

“But you have,” she says quietly. “I get when we have coffee in the morning, but then there was brunch two weeks ago and the plane ride home from Milwaukee last week.”

He knows what she’s referring to. It’s a small thing he hadn’t thought she’d noticed, but Dave had pulled him aside earlier that day and asked if Hotch had a new relationship status he’d wanted to share. One of the things he’d pointed out was the exchange of goods and services, most especially coffee. So he’d backed off, he thinks, hadn’t brought her the usual cup when they were on the way home. He’d been pretty short while they did their case files together that day too. She’d eventually moved to work with JJ. He hadn’t slept well that night. And that brunch she’d reached across to take his blackberries because he’d confessed one day he hated them and he’d all but jumped out of his skin. He’s getting worse and worse at hiding these things from her, he knows. And here it is, biting him in the ass.

“It’s nothing,” he tries to say, but he can tell she doesn’t believe him. It’s a make or break moment and the very last thing he wants to do is break them. So he reaches for her hand, takes it even as she tries to dodge him. He leads her away from the dance floor with a firm grip on her hand, out into the hallway beyond. It’s quiet here, even in a banquet hall as big as this one.

She looks nervous and wary and he hates that more than anything. So he growls at himself and cups her cheek in his hand. It startles her, her eyes wide beneath the mask and he does something he hasn’t done since he’d been a teenager.

He jumps.

Her body stiffens for a split second when his mouth meets her, but it melts soon after and he has to splay a hand against her back to keep them both upright. He feels her arms come up to wrap around his neck and he curls his hand under the waterfall of her hair. Her skull feels perfect in his palm and he groans into her mouth. She echoes it and it’s that more than anything else that startles him back to awareness, to what he’s doing.

He pulls back with a gasp and lets her go, but has to reach for her again when she stumbles in her heels. He cups her elbows as she steadies herself and blinks up at him. It takes all of his considerable will power to just stand there and wait.

“Huh,” she says eventually and she even sounds dazed. “So that’s what it feels like.”

He chokes on a shocked laugh and shakes his head. “I’m sorry I-“

“Oh please don’t,” she says, dropping her head forward. “Don’t tell me it was a mistake.”

He blinks down at her, this woman he’s wanted for so long now. “What?”

She raises her head again and that wariness is back. He doesn’t dare hope though, just holds his breath.

“You’re going to tell me it’s a mistake,” she says. “You’re going to tell me it was wrong and okay, I get that yeah? Thing is, I’ve wanted it for a long time so just… let me have this moment? Please?”

He blinks down at her. “You what?”

She huffs out a sigh, then an awkward laugh. “You really can’t see it? God, Rossi sees it, you know. JJ too.”

His hands tighten on her elbows as she goes to pull away and she sighs again, looking up at him. He doesn’t know what to say, not really, but his mouth seems to open of it’s own accord.

“I’m a single father,” he tells her.

She nods slowly. “I’m aware of that.”

“I work. A lot.”

“I’m aware of that too,” she says. “I’m there with you. Every day. Which, yeah, I know, that too.”

Yeah, that too. So he should step back, should walk away. Instead, he glances around and then tugs her off along the hall. The convention center has a number of smaller breakout rooms at the back and he tugs her into one of those, closing and locking the door behind them.

“Hotch?”

He catches her around the waist, yanks her body into his and takes her mouth again. This time, she’s there with him completely and her hands delve immediately into her hair. He groans every time his mask bumps against hers until he loses his patience completely. He tugs the mask over her head, does the same with his and he can finally see her whole face. She’s nervous, he knows, but the way she responds tells him she wants this.

He drags his fingers over her cheek, slips them into her hair, revels in the soft feeling of her curls beneath his hands. “You want this.”

She swallows and while her eyes dart away he knows it’s his hands that keep her head in place. She’s nervous and vulnerable so he leans in and presses his mouth to her forehead.

“Emily.”

“I’m good at compartmentalizing,” she says and he realizes it’s because she thinks he’s going to pull away. Like he could. “Just once, yeah? No one needs to know.”

Except that won’t work for him and he thinks he has just the way to make that happen. “Are you sure, sweetheart?”

It’s the pet name that gets her attention. It had slipped out, really, finally tumbling from his lips after so long biting it back. Slowly, so very slowly, she steps into his embrace, presses the entire length of her body against his. His eyes flutter closed at every inch of those curves pressed against every inch of him. She will be the death of him. No question.

“So sure,” she answers. “Please.”

He can’t deny her anything, and he definitely won’t even try here. With a groan he takes her mouth, holds her head steady and still while he explores every corner of her taste. She is not passive and fights back, sucks at his tongue, nips at his mouth. When he pulls away for air he tilts her head to the side so he can finally, finally taste her skin. Sweat from dancing, he thinks even as the tart smell of her soap permeates his senses. She’s not a perfume woman, but the scent wafts behind her with every step. God, the number of times he’s wanted to shut himself in his bathroom just to keep the scent lingering there long after she’s showered.

He’s picked the right shoulder too, it seems, because unlike her other arm, there is no dress strap blocking him from her skin. He presses tiny butterfly kisses into her shoulder, bites once or twice just to see what happens. She gasps and arches and he chuckles low and dark. She whines, her hips arching, pressing into his.

“More.”

His fingers slip from her hair, down her back until he finds the zipper of her dress. They shouldn’t, he knows, not in a conference room, but he has a locked door between him and the outside world and it’s going to be enough because he doesn’t think he can make it back to his apartment. Not without second-guessing this. Even so, he looks up at her as he manages the little hook at the top of her zipper. Her eyes are so dark and so unsure and it makes his chest ache.

“Okay?” he whispers as he inches the zipper down.

She nods, but it’s not enough. She’s chewing on her lip and he thinks she’s going to make it bleed. She seems skittish too, nervous and he abandons her zipper at the bottom of its track to press his mouth to hers. Unlike their last kiss, this is soft and gentle, exploratory where it had been desperate. He tells her as best he can that this isn’t one-sided, that he wants her too. It’s not enough, he knows, because he knows she needs the words, but he can barely breathe around the idea of this, of them. The last thing he wants to do is stop even for a second. He’s afraid of what will happen, the change that will come over them, if they stop to think.

For once, he doesn’t want to think.

So he kisses her harder, uses gentle hands to slide the strap of her dress down her arm. The fabric pools at her waist and he swallows. There’s nothing special about the bra, not really. It’s beige and strapless and he wastes no time in disposing of it. He has to pause to catch his breath as he takes her in, naked to the waist and so utterly beautiful.

He’s tentative now, if for no other reason than a sense of disbelief that threads through his arousal. This is not something he has ever anticipated having, never a position he’d ever dreamed he’d be in and he can’t help it. One time, she’d said, and he’s willing to use every second of that time. He gets his hands on her waist, slides them up, bumps his fingers over her ribs. He’s been trying to feed her, to get her to put on weight. He hasn’t been near as successful as he’d wanted considering how many of her ribs he can count with just a gentle touch. But then he reaches her breasts and all other thoughts fly out the window.

She’s soft, so very soft, and there’s a bit of sweat that’s gathered beneath them. He shuffles them back against the table, leans her back so he can lick at that salty taste. Her breath hitches, and he does it again. It’s an erogenous zone, he realizes as he uses his free hand to drag gentle fingers under the other one. She gives a whole body shiver at that, hips arching into nothing. But it isn’t until he takes one of the peaks into his mouth that she actually cries out. He smiles into her breast, laves his tongue over it, uses his teeth. He tests and explores, tries different pressures, decides whether she likes his tongue or his teeth better.

The answer is both.

When he’s explored the one breast to his heart’s content, he switches and tries the other one, Does the same tests. He sucks particularly hard at one point and her whole body bows.

“Aaron!”

He captures her mouth in the next second, his name on her lips the last straw. He tugs at her dress until it slips over her hips, sends her panties the same way until she is absolutely and utterly naked. Then he lifts her, sets her right down on the table and gives not a whit to the fact that there are people who have meetings on that surface. He has one goal and one goal only: to make Emily scream.

He spreads her thighs as he drops to his knees, nuzzles against the soft insides as she pants above him. Her eyes are dark and glittering, her face a mask of lust and heat and he groans as he buries his face in her heat. She chokes and arches as he licks the length of her and he moans when she weaves her fingers through his hair.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he says, letting his fingers trail a feather light path against her leg. “Show me. Show me what you want.”

She’s unsure for a moment, her hands clenching and releasing in his hair. He touches his tongue to her clit again and her hands tighten, finally, finally pushing against his mouth. He follows her every direction, licks quick, hard circles around her clit, stiffens his tongue to push inside her. She keens and whimpers and cries out above him as he pushes her higher and higher.

“Inside,” she gasps. “Please, please, please.”

He gives her what she wants, sliding his fingers through the slickness of her before two fingers push inside her clenching core. He can feel it now, how her muscles flutter with every pulse of his tongue against her clit. He curves his fingers, just a little and gets this keening cry that goes right to his cock.

“Listen to you,” he says against her thigh, bites a mark there for good measure as he thrusts faster, adds a third finger to open her up. “Look at you.”

Her hands guide his head back between her thighs and this time he takes her clit in his mouth and sucks. She keens and comes with a high cry that has him palming himself for a little relief.

Her chest heaves as he kisses up her body, slides his fingers from her still clutching core. She gasps, still incredibly sensitive and he chuckles against her mouth. Her hands, still in his hair, clench hard as she kisses him, wet and dirty, sucking the taste of her from his tongue and seeking out every last trace in his mouth. Then her shaking hands are reaching for his bowtie, his shirt, his jacket. He helps her shove it all to the floor, pants and boxers included, though he pauses to pull a condom from his wallet.

Her eyes are so dark as she takes him in, hands stroking down his chest until she can close her fist around his cock. His breath catches, his eyes flutter, and he can’t do anything for a moment but feel. It’s her little laugh that brings him back, that has him gripping her wrist tightly. She opens her mouth indignantly, but he cuts her off with a kiss, dropping her hand so he can roll the condom down his length. He slides against her then, through the slick heat of her. He can feel her through the condom and he groans into her mouth. God, he just wants to be inside her.

“What are you waiting for, then?” she breathes out and reaches down to line him up.

That first thrust is slow and long and eternal. She spreads around him deliciously, releasing this high little hum that has him reviewing budget numbers to keep from exploding. He grips her hips as he pushes in, in, in, until he can’t push any further. He pauses there, has to get his ground and her eyes flutter open. He can see everything in her eyes, and he groans as he pulls back and thrusts in. The sound she makes then is better than any before it, and he repeats the exact motion on his second thrust. She leans back on her hands for more leverage and the third time he pushes into her, she pushes back.

“Oh my God,” she breathes, dark eyes opening on his. “You feel so good.”

The feeling is entirely mutual, he thinks and groans into the side of her neck as he starts thrusting in earnest now. She’s so soaking wet and glorious around him and presses his mouth to her skin to keep from shouting. She doesn't have that problem though. She releases a cry with every push of his hips, every twist against her clit. He keeps changing the angle, searching, and when he hits everything right, her entire body tenses.

“Again.”

He doesn’t need to be told and he laughs, thrusting into her. A few more of those, her breath hitching in her chest and he sends her careening over the edge a second time. She almost takes him with her, but he grabs onto his control with both hands and his teeth and manages to work her through it. She whimpers when he pulls out, eyes displeased until he lifts her from the table and sets her on shaky feet.

“Turn around, sweetheart,” he whispers into her neck and her eyes widen for a second before going impossibly, impossibly dark.

She does as she’s told, kicking her heels off in the meantime and it puts her at the perfect height for this. He groans, slides his cock along the slick length of her once, twice before finally lining himself up and pushing inside. She’s still fluttering in the aftermath of her orgasm and he groans. His hands go to her hips, anchoring her and him, he thinks. He moves slowly, pressing deep with each thrust. She spreads her legs further and whines while he swears.

She feels so good, so incredibly good, her skin beneath his hands and the heat of her clutching around him. He can’t believe he’s here with her, like this, where he can smell her, feel her, taste her, where he’s driving into her thrust after thrust and he cannot keep his head on, he can’t. She just feels so damn good.

“Oh my God, shut up,” she whimpers.

He laughs, a little surprised himself that he’d said any of that aloud. “Again, sweetheart?”

She whines for a moment before she shifts and tilts her hips up. He slides further inside her, cannot believe he does, and chokes on air.

He’s never going to be able to get enough of her.

Her eyes are impossibly hot as she turns her head to look at him. “Again.”

He drops his head to her back, licks and bites a mark into her shoulder to keep himself from exploding. She won’t be able to wear anything strapless for a while now, he thinks, pushing his arousal impossibly higher. He likes that idea, that he’s leaving his mark on her. Probably more than he should. But she just moans and whimpers beneath him, arches her hips and rocks back. He takes the hint and pushes inside her again, doesn’t bother with timing or finesse. She doesn’t keep quiet and his blood pumps harder with every sound she releases.

And then she slides a hand beneath her body and he feels her fingers find her clit. He’s lost.

He groans his release into her back, pushes with no sense of timing whatsoever. Right when he’s about to collapse on her, he hears her keen and gasps as she clenches around him. It takes him more than a minute to clear the blackness from his vision and he almost loses it again when she whimpers as he pulls out. He shushes her quietly, slides a gentle hand down her back. It takes her a minute to straighten too and he takes that time to dispose of the condom. She doesn’t turn until he’s pulling up his pants and he cannot help his own sense of nervousness now.

She sighs though, shakes out her limbs and offers him a bright smile. “Why didn’t we do that a long time ago?”

He laughs despite himself and steps close. She releases an adorable little surprised squeak as he kisses her, wraps his arms around her. He doesn’t know where they go from here, not really. What he does know is that it’s not enough. She’s under his skin now and he isn’t sure he wants her to leave. He doesn’t want to let her go.

The way her breath catches tells him he’s said it aloud and he holds his breath.

“Then don’t.”

He looks down at her, at the way her eyes have gone so soft. He feels her fingers clench against his back.

“Don’t let me go.”

He presses his forehead to hers and releases something that may have once resembled a laugh before it gets choked off in his throat.

That’s a request he knows he can keep.


End file.
